Deja Vu

All day today I felt like I was reliving the events of a year ago. Hannah had her surgery to have tubes placed in her ears this morning and like last year (that time she had her tonsils and adenoids out as well as the tubes put in) she was a model patient and recovered much quicker than was anticipated. We were sent home a half hour after she woke up and she was doing great. We kept it low key for the afternoon, but when she woke up from her nap we could feel the heat radiating off of her body without even having to touch her. That was NOT a good sign. Her discharge instructions stated that if she got a fever of over 101 degrees then we were to call the office for further instructions. There was no doubt her fever was over 101 degrees, but we took her temperature anyway and it was 103.4 degrees. All I could think of was, "NOT AGAIN!" This was exactly what happened last year except her temperature didn't spike until the next day instead of just later on the same day. After consulting with the ENT we were told to take her to the local pediatric hospital to the ER. He worried that she had post op pneumonia again since she was coughing like crazy as well as had the fever. Off we went to the ER thinking that this was EXACTLY like last time and wondering why on earth Hannah couldn't seem to make it through a routine surgery without getting pneumonia. At the ER they thankfully determined that Hannah does not have pneumonia (at least not yet), but instead has a post surgical bacterial infection of some kind and most likely a cold as well. We were sent home with an antibiotic and orders to monitor her fever and check back in with her doctor if anything changes. Now she is sleeping peacefully and the Tylenol and Motrin seems to be keeping the fever in check. It was quite a day, but Hannah actually did great. We had many comments made to us about what a good girl she was being. She didn't even cry when it was time to head back to the operating room! They let me go back with her and hold her on my lap while she breathed in the gas from the mask until she fell asleep. That whole process was actually quite pain free for her. I was a bit nervous and it was hard to see her slip from consciousness, but I was glad I was able to be there to keep her calm. Please keep Hannah in your prayers while we hope that whatever this infection is that it is able to be treated with the antibiotic and that she is back to feeling herself tomorrow because she has a birthday party that she desperately wants to attend on Saturday and she'd be devastated if she couldn't go!

And It Begins Again

It seems that our almost one year reprieve from near constant ear infections and fluid in the ears is over with. This morning Hannah complained that her ear hurt and when preschool called to tell us to come pick her up because they thought she had pink eye Kyle took her to the doctor and it was confirmed. She does indeed have an ear infection as well as pink eye. The worst part about it is that her ear tubes have slipped out of position in both ears (we found out they might be starting to shift in October). It appears that she got an infection pretty much immediately after the tube had moved out of place. This does not bode well. The way I see it (I realize I'm jumping to conclusions, but I have lots of experience with Hannah's ears to go on) we have two options. First we could just let the tubes fall out and go through the cycle of constant ear infections again and risk Hannah having hearing loss from the fluid building up on her ear drum again like last time. OR we can put Hannah through another surgery to replace the tubes and hopefully get another reprieve from the constant infections, but risk having a recurrence of the post op pneumonia she had last time after being under general anesthesia. I don't like either option. I suppose a third option is that we do nothing and the infections just never come back, that this infection was just a coincidence, but somehow I don't think that is a viable option or a likely outcome. Oh, and to top off poor Hannah's ear infection and pink eye she also started complaining of a tummy ache around lunch time and then finally threw up right around dinner time. I was actually pretty worried about this day. The last time Hannah threw up (not counting the times she's made herself throw up when she was angry) she was only a year old and not really old enough to remember how it feels. I was worried about how she would react when the day finally came that she got sick to her stomach. I expected her to be hysterical. After all, it's a scary feeling to not be able to control your body. I shouldn't have worried though because she took it like a champ and was actually fascinated by the products of her efforts. I suppose it helped that her vomit was bright purple thanks to some blueberries! After throwing up we gave her a bowl to take around with her in case she felt sick again and wasn't able to make it to the toilet. When it was time for bed (she actually ASKED to go to bed around 6pm tonight by the way! That about gave me a heart attack!) she said that she thought she needed to take the bowl with her. Just a few minutes ago when she got up to go to the bathroom she told me that now she was just like me because she had her own bowl by her bed (I have gastropariesis and frequently throw up a night) and she sounded so proud! Great! That's not exactly what I had imagined her wanting to emulate about me! The funny part is that she was concerned that Kyle doesn't have his own bowl. She even offered to share her bowl with him if he needed it. How generous of my little girl :) Then the final nail in the coffin today was that both Kyle and I are pretty sure that we both have pink eye too!

Pneumonia AGAIN

Yes, Hannah has pneumonia AGAIN! The poor little thing seems to be a magnet for bacterial pneumonia. This is the 7th time she's had it in the past 2 years. Her most recent case was only 2 months ago right after her surgery. UGH! Besides the pneumonia, this time she also has a partially collapsed lung. That scares the begeezus out of me. The urgent care doctor says we don't really need to worry about it unless she gets worse, but I'm worrying anyway. Scarring also showed up on this most recent chest x-ray. The radiologist said it was from past cases of pneumonia. I worry that all these cases of pneumonia are going to permanently damage her lungs and I'm also concerned about WHY she gets this pneumonia all the time. What is causing her to be so susceptible? I know that Tiffany (Hannah's birthmother) has severe allergies and asthma and Chase (Hannah's brother) battles croup and ends up in the ER for breathing treatments from it frequently, but neither of them get pneumonia. Please pray for my little girl that she recovers quickly from this and that we can get hooked up with a pediatrician here quickly and get to the bottom of all of this. On a side note, I am also sick. Somehow I managed to get strep throat and pinkeye. Thankfully Hannah didn't get either of those from me and Kyle seems to have mostly escaped it too.

Lately Hannah's defiance and sassiness has gotten out of control. She is blatantly disobedient and speaks very disrespectfully to us. It's like she's 2 going on 16! We've tried several traditional systems of behavior management and discipline, but nothing really seems to work well with Hannah so we are going to go out on a limb and give one of the more unusual methods a try. It's called the Nurtured Heart Method and was pioneered by Howard Glasser. Kyra at This Mom first introduced me to this method. At first pass I thought it sounded fine, but that it was not my kind of thing. It was way too involved for my way of thinking. However, as things slowly spiraled down hill after our moved it became apparent that Hannah needed something more. It couldn't hurt to give Nurtured Heart a try. So I checked the book out of the library and set to work reading it straight through. We are all set to give it a try as soon as Hannah is feeling better. Wish us luck. If you want to know more about the specifics of Nurtured Heart, click on the link to Kyra above. She's done an excellent job through several posts of the basics of Nurtured Heart and how they've applied it at their house.

Here's my autism blogger of the day Full Soul Ahead written by Michelle. Michelle's oldest daughter has Asperger's Syndrome. She writes about daily life as well as some of Riley's challenges. They are currently in the process of getting an autism service dog for Riley and she has written several wonderful posts about how service dogs can help those with autism. Check her out. She's a great read.

Rough Weekend

It's been a tough weekend in the Spontak house. Since Hannah is still at risk for bleeding after her surgery and because of her pneumonia she's not allowed to do much activity. This poses a BIG problem since most of her sensory diet revolves around proprioceptive input-jumping on the trampoline, swinging on her bar or us swinging her around, spinning, running, carrying or pushing heavy stuff, etc. These are not only on her sensory diet, but they are her favorite activities. She's such a sensory seeker that it's almost torture for her to be banned from them (for both her and us). Since her sensory needs are not being met she's been in rare form as far as behavior is concerned. We've been dealing with LOTS AND LOTS of hitting. Usually it's not hitting for any reason in particular, just a way to meet a sensory need that is normally met elsewhere. Tonight she was crawling and lunging all over me on the couch and just being wild. I felt so bad for her. It's hard to know where to place the limit. Hitting is not allowed. She knows that. We enforce that. BUT when she can't meet her needs any other way because we aren't allowing it. It's so difficult to see her struggle. It's like she simply can't control herself. After each and every time out she can easily tell us why she got the time out, but it doesn't do anything to deter future incidents. Top everything off with the fact that she feels crummy and her entire world is disrupted right now as we prepare to move and you've got a recipe for disaster. I've found myself with less patience than I should have because I'm also stressed about the move and how it is/will affect Hannah and that lack of patience is the exact opposite of what is needed right now. Please pray that after Hannah's follow-up appointment with the ENT on Wednesday she will get the go ahead to resume normal activities so that we all don't go crazy!

Recovering

It's been a week and a half since Hannah's surgery and she's still in the recovery phase. The surgery itself went great. It lasted a bit longer than expected, but she came through fine. She had a rough time coming out of anesthesia and got a bit violent, but apparently that's not too unusual for kids since they are so disoriented. It was planned ahead of time that Hannah would be admitted overnight at the hospital for monitoring so we were quickly taken up to her room. Her room was awesome. It was private, had two flat screen TVs and came complete with room service for both Hannah and Kyle and I. Hannah slept for a few hours and then woke up seriously thirsty and hungry. Over the next several hours she drank tons and downed 2 bowls of jello, a Popsicle, a bowl of macaroni and cheese, and a pancake. She was doing so well that the doctor decided that she did not need to stay overnight after all. They released us and we got home about 7pm. We had only had to be at the hospital for 13 hours instead of 36! YAY!



Hannah began running a slight fever the next day, but the doctor stated that as long as it stayed below 101.5 then she was fine, but if it got higher than that then we should take her to either urgent care or the ER. Around 5pm I took her temperature again after giving the Tylenol plenty of time to take affect. Her fever was now 103.6 and she had a nasty cough. Off we went to the urgent care. There she had a chest x-ray, urine culture, and strep test. We left the office with a diagnosis of post operative pneumonia and a prescription for an antibiotic. Hannah slept fitfully that night and finally awoke at 5am on Friday with a raging fever that Tylenol once again was not bringing down. We took her temperature and it was 104.7. Off we went to the ER. We got another chest x-ray, blood tests, IV fluids, a confirmed diagnosis of pneumonia, IV antibiotics and another oral antibiotic. 7 hours later we were finally discharged.



It's been a wild ride since last Wednesday, but it could be much worse. Pneumonia is nothing new at our house, although having it right after surgery is pretty scary. Now we just wait for Hannah's little body to kick this infection and finish healing up from the surgery. She has another appointment with the ENT for this Wednesday to check out all the post op stuff and then her primary doctor wrote a prescription for a follow-up chest x-ray to be done at the end of March after we've moved to confirm that the pneumonia is gone. Thursday while Kyle supervises the movers Hannah and I will head to Riley for her psychologist appointment. Pray that she is feeling well enough that she cooperates with the testing.

Asthma

Sorry it has been such a long time since I last posted. I thought things would calm down a bit, but really they didn't! The biggest news (although not happy news) since I last posted is that Hannah has been diagnosed with asthma. We weren't completely surprised since Tiffany has pretty severe asthma and Chase also has some breathing trouble too. Hannah's had frequent pneumonia and her colds always seem to linger on well past when they should so we kinda figured it might be a possibility someday. She has what's called cold induced asthma (not cold weather, but the virus) which is sometimes also called cough variant asthma. This basically means that she only shows her symptoms when she has some sort of respiratory infection or is having trouble with allergies. The doctor said it could develop into classic asthma as she gets older, but we hope that doesn't happen. Right now she's on an inhaler and she does pretty good with it. She knows exactly what she's supposed to do although we do have obedience issues with it just like we are having in every other area of her life right now!

As far as more fun updates, Kyle introduced Hannah to running through the sprinkler yesterday and she had a blast. I got some awesome pictures! I love our camera. Hannah kept calling the sprinkler rain which I thought was funny. She'd run up to it and touch it, but then run away quickly as it started to come towards her. Last weekend we took Hannah to the Indianapolis Zoo. We decided to buy a zoo membership for Hannah's birthday gift since she loves zoos so much. She really enjoyed our trip and we had great weather for it. It was crowded since it was a holiday, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.

School continues to go well. We will be starting week 12 tomorrow. I can't believe we have been at it for 3 months. Hannah now knows all of the alphabet and all but a few sounds. She knows about half of the lowercase letters and is getting really interested in learning how to write the letters. Every now and then when she is scribbling away she accidentally makes something that resembles a letter and she gets all excited and says, "I wrote a _____" Last night she was really having fun with that. We've finally made it past the 13 hump in counting and she can now go all the way to 20. She really likes it when I pretend to get stuck while I'm counting and she tells me what number I forgot. :) One of her new things is that she has taught herself to count in Spanish. I've had people ask me if she watches Dora or Diego or any of the other kids shows that teach other languages but she doesn't. She has some maracas that count in Spanish, but that is pretty much it. She just learns things on her own. It's pretty amazing. She can go up to 7 (siete) consistently by herself and up to 10 with a little bit of prompting. I thought she was just memorizing the pattern, but didn't really know what it all meant until one day she just started counting shoes as she was moving them from the treadmill back to the entry way (vacuuming day again!) and she was doing it in Spanish instead of English. She was moving one shoe at a time and each time she would go back for a new shoe she would pick back up with the correct Spanish number. She made it to 7 before she started back over with 3 again! I was shocked. Sometimes I'll just hear her counting to herself in Spanish when no one else is around. She just really likes to practice things and has always been obsessed with numbers. I guess I'm going to have to learn the Spanish numbers past 10 so I can keep up with her once she masters 1-10!

18 Months Old

Hannah is officially a year and a half old! Last weekend someone asked me how old Hannah was and I was taken aback when I had to say 18 months. That just seems so old for my little girl! Some good things are coming with her new age and maturity. Some of her stranger anxiety is lessening-FINALLY! We went to a family Christmas on Saturday to see family Hannah hasn't seen since last Christmas and she did great. After 15 minutes or so to warm up she was running around like she owned the place. That made me so happy. She's also been using 3 and 4 word sentences a lot to express herself which is really nice. For example she will say, "Mommy do it please," when she wants me to do something she is pretending to do like be a cow and "eat" the "grass" on her play mat. Or "Daddy's chair move it," when she wants me to pull out Kyle's chair so she can stand on it to look out the window. Every day I am amazed by something she says. Lately it seems like she has a one track mind. If I try to distract her from something she wants or wants to do and I think that once I get her down for a nap or interested in something else she will forget about it, it almost never works. If I tell her we will do something after her nap it is ALWAYS the first thing she asks about when she wakes up, even before I get her out of her crib! One day I told her we would be going to the bookmobile after her nap and I heard her saying on the monitor when she woke up (I wasn't even in the room yet!) "more new books please." She even surprised Sarah when she was asking for a cracker and Sarah told her she would have to ask me about it when I came back into the house. The moment I stepped through the door Hannah asked, "Mommy, cracker?" Sarah was shocked. Her memory is always cause for my amazement. She seems to just know so much that I don't even intend to teach her. For example, one day she was in her crib and supposed to be taking a nap. Well, she wasn't sleeping and hadn't been for 40 minutes. She was alternately crying and just randomly talking and then all of a sudden she started asking every person, animal, and object she could think of to get her down. She went through mommy down, daddy down, Abby down, Ella down, Sadie down, Penny down, Pap down, Kevin down, Grandpa down, Mamaw down, Papaw down, Zeke down, Toby down, Sarah down, Evelyn down, Jason down, Sidney down, Heather down, Kristie down, Jake down and on and on using duck, zebra, lion, elephant, etc. The crazy thing was that she naturally grouped all the things/people who went together into family groups or equivalents. For example she did Kyle and I and all of our pets together, she did Kyle's family together, she did Sarah and her family and dog together, etc. She even put all the random animal names together and furniture together!

It's been interesting lately to see her learning from other people. For example, her friend Evelyn says "upy" when she wants picked up. Hannah has always just used the word up and then up please to indicate she wants picked up, but all of a sudden she started using upy after spending a day with Evelyn. It was funny because we knew she knew that wasn't the right word to say because if we pretended not to hear her she would completely change her tactic and say "Up, please!" :) Another example is sneezing. When Hannah sneezes or when someone else sneezes we always say bless you, but we had never instructed Hannah to say it. Now she ALWAYS says bless you to anyone who sneezes or coughs. It's very cute. She has also learned how to say excuse me properly. Instead of just saying, "excUse" she says, "Excuse Meeeeee". It sounds a little snotty at the moment like she's back talking, but I'm pretty sure she's not doing that yet! We'll work on the delivery after she gets the idea of it a little better!

Lately she's been much more affectionate and has been giving spontaneous hugs and kisses and I love yous. She's even started asking Kyle to turn his head from side to side so that she can kiss each cheek over and over again. It makes me smile when she asks for kisses!

She's really getting into being a "Big Girl" and doing absolutely everything for herself. She can now feed herself exclusively, even soup or other liquids such as cheerios with milk. This actually makes things difficult sometimes because when I try to stop her from dumping something when she's not paying attention she gets really angry and throws a tantrum. Speaking of eating, she has two more new teeth that finally came in. Now she has pretty much all of her teeth except for her last set of molars. I will be so happy for teething to be completely over. She's not been a good teether and it will be nice to be rid of at least one more thing that can potentially make her cranky!

Hannah spends a lot of time talking about Jesus. She's been praying a lot on her own and reminds me to pray at meals sometimes. We've been working on bowing our heads and closing our eyes (along with folding her hands which she's mastered) when we pray and the other day she just climbed up on the couch and said "Pray Jesus" and folded her hands, closed her eyes, and bowed her head and then sat silently for a brief moment and then said "Amen" I was so proud of her.

We finally took the rocker off of her bike and have been letting Hannah push it around the house with her feet. She can almost reach the pedals now, but can't quite extend her leg all the way to actually pedal. I'm sure this spring she'll be able to reach them and will be rearing to go!

This winter our family has been plagued with our share of colds, sniffles, and stuffy noses. Hannah finally had her first doctor's visit with no tears and she even bravely let them take her temperature and look in her ears and mouth! Her congestion forced us to get the dreaded aspirator out again and by the end of it Hannah had actually stopped struggling while we did it. In fact it was as if she was putting up with it just so she could get to the good part which this time was twisting the cap back on the saline solution that we squirt up her nose first! She is also honing her skills at blowing her nose and is very interested in everyone else blowing their noses too! Speaking of doctors, today I had a doctor's appointment that I had to take Hannah with me to and while the doctor was entering some information into the computer she get very excited because she wanted to see the "pishurs" on it. Because we do so much digital photography, Hannah thinks computers are made for nothing but displaying pictures of her and she is very surprised anytime there is a computer somewhere else that doesn't have a picture of her on it!

Back before Christmas we went to visit Tiffany and her family and Hannah got to see Tiffany's brother Robert for the first time since May. Every time Robert has seen Hannah since she has been born she has screamed bloody murder whenever he held her. BUT for some reason this last visit was different. Hannah really warmed up to him quickly and they became fast friends. I wonder if it's the facial hair (Robert recently let his beard grow much longer) since Hannah seems to have a thing for men with facial hair. We got some great pictures of them together and when we were walking into the church to see the twins' Christmas play, Hannah wanted to hold Robert's hand! It was really cute. Ever since Hannah has been asking about Robert constantly and completely fixates on his picture in her photo album. I know it made Robert feel good and I'm happy that Hannah is developing closer bonds with all of her birthfamily.

Ever since Hannah had her last bout with pneumonia and the x-ray tech gave her a sticker, Hannah has been very intrigued by stickers. Then, she started going to gymnastics and she gets either a sticker or a stamp on her hand after each class. That pretty much sent her into full fledged sticker obsession. This is pretty much a pain in the butt since she likes to take them on and off of the various things she chooses to stick them on and then they lose their sticky and they get lost and she has a fit when she can't find her sticker, but I have managed to find a bright side to the obsession and use it for my benefit. Lately Hannah has been asserting her independence which has caused some serious obedience issues. Consequently we try to praise her like crazy whenever she does obey without a fight. So, here recently, I've been saving all those crazy stickers that charitable organizations send me (like Easter Seals for example) and using them as rewards/incentives when Hannah obeys. She is so proud of herself when she earns a sticker and sometimes even wants to call Kyle at work and tell him about it! I'm thinking that if this sticker obsession continues until she is a little bit older then I may have hit the jackpot in the discipline department because she is also devastated if she loses a sticker for being disobedient or naughty. Maybe, just maybe stickers will be the key to a quick and painless toilet training.

Hannah got several new art related supplies as gifts for Christmas and she's really been enjoying trying them out and releasing her inner Picasso! She got some Crayola first markers and paints and some new crayons from her grandpa and she LOVES to use them to color the pages she gets at gymnastics and at the bookmobile. She also got this cool little magnetic drawing lap desk from Kyle's aunt and uncle that she is crazy about. It even has these little magnet "stamps" that are animal shapes that she can stamp on the desk and then it all wipes clean with one swipe of the ladybug lever and you can start all over. It's really cool. Even I like playing with it. The best thing is that it's designed for kids 18 months and up so I don't have to worry about safety concerns like I would have to with a normal magnadoodle or the equivalent. Hannah loves to pretend she's writing her name on the screen and even pretends to spell it out. She knows several of the letters in her own name although she doesn't usually get them in the right order when she says them out loud as she pretends to write. I can't wait to try this toy out in the van the next time we need to take a road trip. We let Evelyn borrow it when they took their trip back to Minnesota for Christmas and we heard it was a lifesaver.

Hannah has always loved to be tickled from since she was really little. Once she learned the signs for more and all done and then the words more and all done she also loves to get you to start and stop tickling her on command repeatedly! For the past few weeks she's branched out in the tickling department from just being the tickled to now also being the tickler. She loves to tickle me and of course announce what she's doing by saying, "tickle, tick, tick!" as she's tickling me. She's also started trying to tickle the pets which is pretty funny to watch. I'm not so sure that the dogs or cats really get it, but they've been good sports about it so far.

To update everyone on Hannah's love of numbers, she has officially mastered counting to 6 and has even counted to 10 a few times on her own too. It's been so exciting to watch her just explode with knowledge the past few weeks. She's had a color learning explosion as well. She can now accurately name red, blue, green, orange, and pink about 95% of the time. She gets yellow and purple only about 75% of the time, but I think that's pretty good for an 18 month old. It seems like her favorite thing to do these days is to count or play the "color game" which is pretty much either me pointing to something and asking her what color it is, me saying "Hannah find the (insert color) (insert object)", or her matching colors. She likes to have me pull out a green block and then ask her to put all the other blocks of the same color by it. She loves to do that sorting game. To her everything is a game and she just soaks it up and constantly asks for more. She's just so bored when she's not learning that she gets herself into all sorts of trouble.

Off and Running

Now that Hannah is pretty steady on her feet, she can really put some speed into her traveling. It's definitely safe to say that she is now off and running. This new found speed however is a bit hazardous to her health. She's constantly running into walls, doors, pets, and just about anything else you can think of because she can't slow herself down fast enough to avoid a collision or because she's moving so fast that she misses her turn! Yesterday she took a serious header outside on the sidewalk and has a big bruise and road raspberry to show for it on her cheek. Really she's falling and conking her head so much that I'm worried they're going to think we are abusing her at her well baby appointment next week!

WARNING!!!! THIS POST IS RATED PG FOR BABY NUDITY If you think you might be offended by the following pictures then scroll through quickly!

Lately all Hannah wants to do is play outside. Back when it was unseasonably warm we had been taking multiple walks a day, going swimming in her pool, and playing in the rocks pretty much all day long. We spent very little time inside. Now that it's cold Hannah still wants to be outside just as much, but I've had to rein her in a bit because I don't want her getting sick. She already has a bit of a cold and cough and I'm scared it might progress if she gets too chilly outside or sweaty while she's playing out there.

Speaking of colds, I'd been giving Hannah this cough suppressant/decongestant per doctor's orders and today I read in the paper that they have pulled all infant cold medicines off the market! The one we had been using was on the list as well as just about every other kind I saw in the store. I'm taking Hannah into the doctor today to talk about what to do about her discomfort now that there are no over the counter meds that are deemed safe for her to take. It's quite scary to know that I've been giving it to her for the past few days and now the FDA says its not safe for any child under 2 years old!

I'm back later this afternoon and Hannah's doctor's appointment was an adventure. The doctor heard wheezing in Hannah's chest and suspects a possible case of pneumonia so he sent her to have a chest x-ray done again. This time I watched through the window as the 2 x-ray techs struggled to get Hannah into the baby torture device. Once it finally seemed as if they had succeeded it turned out that they couldn't latch the thing because Hannah was too big for the device! So after she was all worked up about that they wanted her to sit perfectly still on a little step stool with her back up against the film and hold her hands above her head. Yeah right! Like that ever had a shot at working! Then one of the techs came out and said,"Mom, is there any chance you might be pregnant?" I said, "Um, no," and she immediately handed me the lead apron and had me come in and try to help them hold Hannah still and in position. It took several sets of failed x-rays before they finally got two usable shots of her lungs.

It's been over a week since I started this and here is an update on Hannah's condition. The chest x-rays were inconclusive and Hannah's wheeziness continued to increase so the doctor ordered a second set of x-rays. This time we had one of the same techs that was present during the previous struggle so there was not even a suggestion that she go in the baby straight jacket! Hannah remained fairly calm (of course there was a lot of crying, but not too too hysterical!) since they gave me a lead apron right away and there was no power struggle with the techs. It only took them 5 x-rays to get the two usable ones they needed instead of the 12 it took last time. This set of x-rays did end up showing that Hannah had fluid in her lungs so she got another bacterial pneumonia diagnosis. :( They started her on azythromiacin right away so hopefully that will knock it out. She also had her well baby (even though she wasn't well!) check up and shots the day after the x-rays and the doctor said we had a healthy and happy little girl. After listening in on one of Hannah's conversations with her favorite nurse while standing outside the exam room door and then watching Hannah's problem solving abilities as she opened one of their childproofed cabinet doors in the room, he was finally forced to concede to the fact that maybe Hannah's communication and problem solving skills were a bit above average for her age! As far as her stats go, Hannah had lost a pound in the week since she first went to the doctor for her cold that ended up being pneumonia so she weighed in on Thursday at a slim 25 lbs which is in the 75th percentile for her age. The doc said not to worry since she'd been off her chow a bit because she was feeling yucky. Her height was 33 1/2 inches tall which is past the 99th percentile for her age. Her head circumference also maxed out the 99th percentile for her age. When her weight was plotted against her height (not taking into account her age) she was in the 35th percentile. She's turning into a tall and skinny little girl. Besides being tall and having a huge head, she's also got big feet too. Her newest shoes are a size 6 1/2! Getting back to Hannah's sickness, she has learned one new skill from all of this and developed an odd addiction as well. The good new skill is that since she's had so much snot in her nose and she hates for us to use the bulb aspirator on her to suck it out she's learned to blow her nose-sort of. Her new addiction is Vick's' Baby Vapor Rub. Hannah absolutely LOVES to have it rubbed on her chest and back and asks for it by saying, "cream" almost every time she is on the changing table. It's just about the only way we can get her to hold still while we use the aspirator. We tell her she can have some cream when we are done and then she grudgingly complies and starts asking for cream as soon as we stop the snot sucking!

Getting back to playing outside, Hannah is so cute when she is playing outside. I remember last spring when I was worried she'd be a city girl and not want to play outside and get dirty. I shouldn't have worried a bit, because she has no qualms about getting dirty outside. She digs in the flower bed, piles rocks up on the sidewalk and fills her pockets with them, picks flowers, and splashes in the water and then gets grass and mud stuck all over her body. While we were in PA, Kyle's aunt gave us an old Little Tykes toddler swing that they had for us to use with Hannah. Kyle just got it hung up earlier this week and Hannah has been LOVING going out to swing in her own yard and not having to go to the park to get her swing fix! The only problem, if you could call it that since Hannah doesn't seem to mind at all, is that since none of our trees have a level branch low enough to hang the swing from Kyle had to improvise and hang the swing with ropes that are not the same length. Because of this the swing doesn't swing straight back and forth. It twists and turns as you push it. It's a bit unconventional, but Hannah still loves it. It's too funny to see her try to decide when she goes outside if she wants to ride in her swing or play in the rocks. It's a tough decision since she loves them both so much! Lately Hannah's had a new outdoor obsession that has rivaled the rocks for top spot on her "to do" list. She's enthralled by the neighbor's flowers. They have some mums and some other kind of fall flower that I have no idea what they are, but they are pretty and Hannah loves them. She sees them from the window and asks to go look at them. We take one step outside and she's after them like a rocket. The problem is that they are across the street so I really don't want her just running off towards them. Since she's so obsessed with those flowers I've used them to try to teach her colors and she's been really interested in that. The flowers are red, purple, and orange. She has actually used those colors spontaneously for other things and it was actually the right color. Besides red, purple, and orange, she also knows blue and green. While she doesn't always answer with the right color when we ask her what color something is, she always answers with a color at least. I think she understands what we mean by color, but can't always identify the right one. She knows red, blue, green, purple, orange, and yellow are colors at least. I think that's a good start. Besides the flowers, another new outdoor pastime she's found is filling her shirt, pockets, and pants up with rocks. She grabs huge handfuls of rocks and drops them down the back of her shirt or shoves them in the cuffs of her pants. Then, when it gets uncomfortable, she wants me to fish them out. Of course as soon as they are out she's busy filling her clothing back up again! Her interest in the rocks has been at least somewhat educational, however. She loves to hand me handfuls of rocks and watch me drop them one at a time back into the flower bed as I count them. She then takes her own handful and copies what I say as she drops her own back into the pile. Her favorite numbers to say right now, in addition to the old stand by of 3 are 11 and 13. She always gets this goofy, pleased with herself smile every time she says 13! Yesterday she was out enjoying the nice weather and playing in the rocks and she picked up a rock that was much larger than the rest of the rocks in the bed and said "big" and held it up for me to see. I said, "Yes, Hannah that's a big rock." Then she put it back down, picked up a smaller rock and said, "Small." I was so proud of her. I really think she's actually learning the concept of size and what those words mean! The other day she said big and small together and used the arm gestures we use while she was looking at the right page in her Nemo Opposite book, but I just thought she had the page memorized not that she really got what big and small meant, but I think I was wrong. I think she really gets it. She did the same thing with open and closed and hot and cold last week too. She amazes me every day at the amount of new things she learns.

I apologize that this update is turning into a novel. Hannah just has so many new accomplishments and has done so many neat things that I just have to tell you all about it! It doesn't help that it's been several weeks since I've actually had a chance to sit down at the computer! Here's some more new updates in no particular organizational structure!

Hannah has taken to moving the pets out of the way when they are keeping her from doing what she wants or going where she wants to go. She will push them aside while at the same time saying, "excuse" just like she does when she burps! It's very cute and I like that she does it spontaneously because it tells me that she actually gets it and is not just doing something on our prompting. She continues to help with all the pet related chores and has graduated from handing me the lids to the cat food cans to actually putting the lids back on the cans. She gets so excited when she gets to do her part! She's also started putting the dogs in their crates. When I say, "Abby, Ella, crates!" Hannah yells, "Abby, Ella" and then goes over and waits for them to go into their crates and then shuts the doors on them! She also likes to help me put the dogs out and she'll yell, "out pups" when they are running to the back door to be put outside.

Hannah is now quite good at using a spoon to feed herself and can even scoop up solitary movable objects like a piece of peach or a pea with her spoon and manage to keep it on the spoon all the way to her mouth! That's a huge hooray for us because if she can feed herself then we just might be able to actually eat our food before it gets cold sometime in the near future!

Yesterday, even though she was sick and shouldn't have been exerting herself quite that much, she taught herself how to climb into and out of the climber by scaling the outside wall and shimmying through the window! She was using some serious upper body strength and coordinating her hands and feet to just the right places to step and grab in order to accomplish her new skill. She was quite the little monkey. I actually managed to get some of it on video once I was satisfied that she could do it and wasn't going to break her neck in the process!

Last year for Christmas Heather got Hannah this Finding Nemo purse. Up until a few weeks ago Hannah never really showed much interest in it. Now, however, she carries that thing with her all over the house and loves to stuff things inside of it. She'll put her baby keys inside of it and her credit cards and then put her arm through the loop and wiggle it up onto her shoulder and strut off just like she's on her way to the store! I hope this isn't a sign of things to come, I don't want a shop-aholic toddler!

Hannah has learned the names for all the Whinnie the Pooh characters on her piano and just the other day she finally noticed that my sunglasses have Pooh on them. Now, whenever I have my glasses on, she reaches up and touches the small picture of Pooh and says, " Glasses, Pooh!" like it's the most interesting and exciting thing she's ever seen! It hasn't seemed to lose it's appeal yet. Speaking of learning the names of characters, for her birthday Hannah got a bike that had stickers of a Nickelodeon show called the Backyardigans on it. We'd never seen the show since we don't get Nick so I had no idea what it was about or what the characters' names were. Well, Hannah has always wanted us to tell her what the animals are. There is a moose, hippo, penguin, kangaroo, and this other pink animal that I have no idea what it is. Hannah's favorite was the moose. Well, the other day when we were at the bookmobile Hannah saw the cover of a DVD of a Backyardigan episode. She immediately started saying "Moose" and gesturing at the shelf. I decided I'd check it out for her and we took it home and watched it and Hannah was enthralled. The characters sing and dance almost the entire time and the story lines are cute and the animation simple. Hannah listens intently and sometimes even repeats back what the characters say. In her favorite episode some of the characters pretend they are part of a motorcycle gang called the Do-Gooders. They go around helping everyone and say they are rough, tough, and nice. They always say, "Grrrr!" after they do anything and Hannah just thinks that is hysterical! Every time they do it she turns to me and says, "Grrr!" right back. After a few days of watching through the video (there were 4 episodes on it) Hannah started to ask to watch it. She would gesture at the DVD player and say, "Moose Mu." It took me awhile, but I finally figured out she was asking for her Moose Movie! Now that we've returned the DVD to the libray she still asks for it and seems sad when I tell her that we had to take it back! Oh, another thing about the Backyardigans. Hannah's favorite character before we watched the DVD was the moose, but after watching the movie her favorite character became the pink thing that I don't know what kind of animal it is. Her name is Uniqua and everytime she would come on the screen Hannah would say "Neeky" and point at her. It is very, very cute. Yesterday we were grocery shopping at Walmart and Hannah spotted on an endcap a set of toddler dishes and tableware that had the Backyardigans on them. She started saying "Moose, Neeky, Bird" and pointing back behind her and trying to turn around in the cart. I stopped walking and asked her what she was talking about and she repeated her words and then pointed to the shelf and I saw it. She's got such good eyesight! I ended up getting them to hold back for her for Christmas. I put them in the cart when she wasn't looking and hid them under some groceries! She's not ready for a plate and metal fork just yet, but it won't be long.

Hannah has been very disappointed, now that the weather has turned cooler, because she can't swim in her pool anymore. Because I've been lazy and haven't deflated it yet, she can see it on the deck and asks for it almost daily by pointing at it and saying "Splash." After many times of me telling her that it was too cold to splash in the pool she has started answering herself by pointing at the pool and saying, "Splash, no, cold" and then looking at me with a sad look on her face. I've really got to get that thing put away so she won't have to keep being disappointed.

One of Hannah's favorite parts of her bedtime ritual we added only recently, but it's about the only way we can get her to start getting ready for bed without a tantrum. She absolutely hates going to bed and will run away from you if she thinks you are going to try to put her to bed or she will start stalling by asking for a drink, another book, to eat, or anything else she can think of. Fortunately for her, Daddy is a big softie and a huge pushover so she usually gets away with a certain amount of stalling when he's on bedtime duty since he wants to spend more time with her anyway! I just reread what I wrote and I still haven't told you what Hannah loves to do at bedtime! She loves to pick out which pajamas (or jammies as she calls them) she's going to wear. We give her two choices of temperature appropriate jammies and she studies them for quite awhile before finally settling on the ones she wants to wear. It's quite cute to see her examining them.

One exciting new development in Hannah's communication skills is that she has started to sing along to some of her favorite songs and will ask for specific songs that she wants to sing or wants you to sing. She really likes to exercise her control by telling you what song to sing and then saying "all done" in the middle of the song and then asking for a different one. If you don't stop when she says all done she will keep saying it, louder and louder until you finally stop! Some of her favorite songs that she will sing along with are I've Been Working on the Railroad, Patty Cake (she asks for this alot by saying "Backy Cake!" Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, Jesus Loves Me, Wheels on the Bus, and Who's the King of Me. I'm sure there are several I am forgetting, but I just had a brain lapse and can't remember any of them! I also taught her two new songs the other day that I used to sing as a kid with the partner clapping, Miss Mary Mack and Peas Porridge Hot. She thinks these are great and has been asking me for them alot. For Peas Porridge Hot she says "Peas" and then smacks her thighs. For Miss Mary Mack she says, "Elfant."

Another new communication skill she has learned is adding -ing to some of the words that she knows. Now, instead of saying, "wok, wok, wok" while she is walking, she says, "woking." When she hears the dogs bark she says "barking" and when she sees them eating or chewing on a bone she says "eating" instead of "eat." Also, instead of saying "kick, kick, kick" when she's kicking me in her highchair or kicking a ball she now says, "kicking" instead. Lately her favorite new language skill is to add the "eee" sound onto the end of all sorts of words. Now we have mommy, ducky, doggy, puppy, and daddy instead of the previous mom, dad, duck, and dog. Some of her news words she's added to her vocabulary are monkey, pony tail, color, cream, hurt, pumpkin, mailman, and flower.

Hannah loves her books so much that it's a lot of fun to take her to the bookmobile every other week. I didn't realize how much she actually enjoyed going to the bookmobile until a few weeks ago when she started saying and signing book every time we walked past the Friendship House (a retirement home across the street from us where the bookmobile stops) or anytime she saw a bus (the bookmobile is a long trailer pulled by a dually truck that is a disel and sounds like the sounds the buses make). It's quite hard to explain to a 15 month old that the books aren't always there and that the bookmobile only goes there every other Thursday! I think it's interesting that after only a few months she began to associate both the place and the transportation that brings her beloved books to her!

Hannah is still very interested in letters and the alphabet song. Lately she's been pointing at letters on her mat and asking me to name them for her. I always make the sound the letter makes and say a word that begins with that letter when I point to it and she has started to make some connections. She knows that M is for Mommy and that Z is for Zeke and that Z makes the zzzz sound!

A few weeks ago Hannah went to a pumpkin patch and had her very first pony ride. They had a petting zoo at the pumpkin patch and we let Hannah wander around in that barn and look at the animals and then we went outside just to watch the ponies. We didn't figure Hannah would want to ride since she wasn't very receptive to being on Julie's back (my sister's pony) the last time we were at my mom's house and she's always been one to like to admire the horses from afar and not really even pet them very much. The most adventurous she had ever been with horses had been when she asked to "Pat, Pat, Pat" the horses next door to Baba's farm last month. As we watched the ponies it was evident that Hannah wanted near them and really wanted to ride. She even asked Kyle to ride. So I said, "Hannah do you want to ride on the pony?" and she replied, "Yes!" and gave a very emphatic nod of her head. We got the tickets and when it was her turn she sat up on the horse so tall and proud and while we were waiting for the other kids to get on and we were just standing still she starting rocking forwards and backwards and shaking the saddle horn to try to make the pony go! She had so much fun it was unbelievable. She had a huge smile on her face the entire time and of course there was a tantrum when it was time to get off. I eventually got her to say bye-bye to the ponies and give her pony a hug and a "pat, pat, pat." I'm so excited that she liked riding the pony. I was very worried that she wasn't going to want to learn how to ride. That would have been very sad for me since I've been dreamign about teaching her how to ride before she was even born!

A few days ago Hannah did something that totally shocked me and made me realize how much she's learning everyday that we don't expressly intend to teach her. Every day we go get the mail together and Hannah rips up the junk mail as I read through the good stuff. Well I was pretty absorbed in reading an ad from a politician and I didn't really realize that Hannah had even got up and walked away until I heard the trash can close. I looked up and Hannah was picking up the shredded pieces of junkmail and putting them in the trash. Everyday when she's done with the mail I pick it up and put it in the trash. I asked her, "Hannah, what are you doing?" and she said, "Trash" clear as a bell and walked back over to the junkmail on the floor, picked up some more and took it into the kitchen and threw it away! Ever since then she loves to throw the trash away, so much so that I've already had to stop her from throwing some things away that weren't trash! It's constant vigilance now and we'll have to be sure to take a quick peek in the trashbag before we take out the trash each week to be sure there isn't anything important in there!

A very helpful new sign and word that Hannah just learned is "Hurt." The other day she started signing and saying hurt and we asked her what hurt and she said and pointed to her teeth! She had been pretty cranky so we believed her and gave her some teething tablets. Her mood improved almost immediately. Now whenever she bumps her head or falls down or anything that might cause pain she signs and says hurt. Usually if I ask her where she is hurting she'll tell me where it hurts, we will talk about it and that gets her past being upset about it. It's great!

As Hannah becomes more and more independent there are lots of things that she wants to do by herself and she doesn't want me to help her. The problem is that she can't really do all the things she wants to do alone. For example, she really wants to be able to dress herself. She LOVES to put on socks. She's really getting pretty good at it and holds the hole open with both hands and tries to pull it over her foot, but she just can't keep her grip tight enough to get them completely on. This makes her VERY ANGRY. Eventually she asks for help, but she doesn't like having to ask for it. She's also been working on trying to put her pants on. Yesterday she managed to get both legs into the right holes and everything, but of course she couldn't pull them up while she was sitting down and she didn't want to stand up. We had a pretty big tantrum there, but eventually she let me stand her up and help her pull her pants up and button them.

Speaking of tantrums, we had our first public tantrum a few weeks ago in IHOP. She had been getting pretty antsy towards the end of the meal and really wanted out of her highchair. When Kyle was finished eating he told her she could get out, but that she had to sit on his lap until I was done. She said OK, but of course she wanted down as soon as she was out of the chair. We finished eating and I was packing up and Hannah kept trying to run off and then she just threw herself onto the floor (I had ahold of one arm so it wasn't too hard of a landing!) and started screaming. She's got quite a set of lungs and pretty much the entire restaraunt turned to look at us. It was a bit embarassing, but what could I do. You can't just make a kid stop screaming, especially a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. Tantrums aren't rational so it's not like the kid can stop them either. We just got her out of there as fast as possible and waited for it to blow over which it did fairly quickly and then we got her into her carseat and drove home. Of course she was really sleepy (we were out near her bedtime) which was our fault and she just couldn't handle one more thing so on the way home she completely crashed. We were able to carry her into the house, take her coat off and put her right into bed still asleep. I love that she can sleep through a transfer from carseat to bed. That makes errands so nice because if we run just a bit past her normal naptime I can count on her falling asleep on the way home and being able to just take her to her room without worrying about her waking up and losing her entire nap.

The final Hananh update I have for you is that Hannah has finally masted playing her harmonica. She can now suck air in and blow air out to make the harmonica make music. She loves to play her harmonica with Daddy. The two of them make pretty good music together. It's very cute and I have a video of it so you all can see just how cute it really is! She's actually better than I am at playing it!